‘Nobody really knew what went on,’ Huw said. ‘They only saw – or thought they saw – some of the effects of it. But you might care to speculate about Rector experimenting with the natural energy, enhanced by the yearnings of Father Iggy and Eric Gill. If I were more of a mystic, I might say that the veil between heaven and earth, between here and there, between one kind of existence and another… you might think what went on up here had stretched it tight as a drum.’
Emrys looked uncomfortable. No wonder the people of the Black Mountains had retreated into the starkness and simplicity of their Baptist chapels.
‘Sometimes,’ Emrys said, ‘Rector’s people would walk all the way from the farmhouse to the monastery, before dawn, in complete silence, till they got to the place where the Lady was seen in the eighteen seventies. All arriving in the morning mist.’
Merrily said, ‘You saw this?’
‘And I turned away, Mrs Watkins. I turned away. For, as the Bible says, I was sore afraid.’
‘Who were these people? The people who came to study with Rector, and to partake in his… rituals.’
‘Rich people,’ Huw said. ‘Paying to live rough and learn secrets. Famous people – rock stars who wanted summat closer to home than an ashram in the Himalayas. Rector seems to have liked famous people. Creative people. Artists.’
‘And writers,’ Emrys said. ‘They reckon that in the early years of that Hay Festival, when it was held in the town and these writers and poets used to go to the pubs and the cafés, he’d get into conversation with them. Seemed to be able to attract people to him. When you seen him you thought he must be somebody you knowed from the papers or the television. Somebody famous. What’s the word…?’
‘Charisma,’ Huw said. ‘Just like Father Iggy and Eric Gill.’
‘Aye. Same when you seen him walking across the hills… these big, long strides. Like he owned the place. I don’t mean in an arrogant way, I suppose I mean like he knowed the place. And it knowed him. On some higher level.’
Even in the earthy acoustic of the chapel, this was getting impenetrable. It still wasn’t clear exactly what form Rector’s residential courses had taken. What he was actually teaching.
‘Put ’em through it, mind,’ Emrys said. ‘The rich folks.’
‘Part of the exercise,’ Huw said. ‘Separate yourself from your normal environment. Be closer to the hard, stony ground.’
‘And havin’ to mix with the Convoy. Not all of them liked that.’
‘Sorry,’ Merrily said. ‘The what?’
‘Convoy,’ Huw said. ‘You must remember the Convoy, lass. The so-called New Age Travellers. The neo-hippies who went round in customized buses, getting stoned and holding moveable festivals. Mostly along the Welsh border on account of the remoteness of it. Until a law got passed making it illegal for more than two or three to travel around, set up camp.’
‘Of course. Yes. Heard people talk about that. Clashes with the police all over the country. Weren’t they demanding the same status as Romany gypsies?’
‘Farmers mostly hated them,’ Huw said. ‘Useless scroungers trespassing on private land, burning fences for camp fires. Not popular in the country towns either. Specially in Hay. Every autumn a dozen or so knackered owd buses’d arrive on Hay Bluff – holy of holies for the Convoy – where there were a stone circle they could claim for their own and you could pick thousands of magic mushrooms in the season.’
‘Ah.’
‘Psilocybin mushrooms. Poor man’s acid. You made a brew wi’ ’em. Quite effective… I’m told. Anyroad, Peter Rector would involve some of the Convoy folk in his communal activities. His rituals. Which didn’t make him many friends in Hay.’
‘They’d walk over from their camp on the Bluff,’ Emrys recalled. ‘Quite a few at first, but in the end it was just a handful who’d come back.’
‘Why them?’
‘Happen because they were the ones up for owt,’ Huw said. ‘Nowt to lose. Willing to participate in who knows what.’
‘Does either of you know what?’
‘Could be looking at enhanced visualization. Various attempts… by ritual and a combined focus – and happen a pot or two of mushroom tea – to bring summat into existence… a perceived existence, if you prefer to retain some scepticism.’
‘Specifically?’
‘Merrily,’ Huw said. ‘You know what we’re talking about.’
‘Sacrilege,’ Emrys said. ‘We turned the other way because he was a friendly man when you knowed him. And he’d brought money into the community.’